Backstory for Amongst The Stars

In the early 21st century of Earth, mankind discovered a solution to what seemed to be all of its problems; nuclear fusion. In 2025, the first commercial fusion reactor went online near Paris, France. By 2040, more than one third of global power requirements were covered by the impressive technology. The oil industry was left to rot as more efficient reactors were designed every week, allowing humanity to turn its focus to the stars and not on petty civil conflict. One material made it all possible: Helium-3.

While there were many methods of power generation, Helium-3 was by far the most efficient one. The problem was that the material was rare on the small blue pearl, the inhabitants of which were forced to use the less useful Deuterium reactors, the fuel of which existed in abundance in the oceans. Luckily for them, and in an ironic twist, the valuable isotope existed in terrifying quantities on a location only a single light-second away: Luna. The once neglected moon became a hive of activity as private corporations raced to get their hands on the deposits, and before 2060, the space industry had boomed to a degree where there were civilian transports between Earth and its moon every few hours. A new era of prosperity had begun.

By 2080, there were human colonies on Mars, Europa and Titan, and mining outposts in the Sol asteroid belt. But it was not until the late 2090s that the true leap in space exploration occurred. The first faster-than-light jump was successfully completed on the 22nd of July, 2097, at exactly 12:00 Universal Coordinated Time by the United Nations Space Vessel "UNSV Curie", with Alpha Centauri as its destination. It was a crude jump, one that took entire weeks to plot, but it caught the attention of greater powers. Just a month later, humanity had its first encounter with an extraterrestrial intelligence. While the natural name is impossible to pronounce in any human language, humans decided to call them the "Alarei", a word close to what the aliens called them. They revealed themselves to be the true Roswell aliens, and invited the people of Sol to join a small, but growing interstellar community. The United Nations reluctantly accepted.

Commander O'Brien of the British Royal Air Force and NASA astronaut Jeffrey Uribe stand side by side as they investigate and explore a freezing planet outside of the comfort of their rover. This was just one of several explorations, the scientific, industrial, and colonization potential of the unknown planets before Earth had scattered many scientists, astronauts, and military personnel from various countries across the known galaxy.

With their entry into the galactic community, humans begun to focus their efforts on military vessels. The first Max Planck Class Destroyer finished trials in 2106, and entered active service as a long range patrol craft with the newly formed United Nations Space Command. As of 2110, there were twelve such destroyers in service, and the first cruiser was in the process of being built. As of 2120, the first human battleship had been launched from the Albert Einstein Shipyards in orbit of Mars. Human expansion peaked; six solar systems were colonized by man, and outposts were built on twelve more. Technological progress boomed. It was a utopia.

But after much delay, and concern by the other races, humanity was asked to sign the treaty they called "The Alarei Treaty"; a clear nod to the fact the Alarei were the most advanced race in the council. The treaty called for a limit in both the systems humanity can colonize, and the number of ships it can field at a time.

Humanity declined. Tensions rose, as Russia, with a joint pact from several slavic nations, blatantly broke the Alarei treaty. The nation, taken over by an ultranationalist revolution backed by the socialist regime some decades ago, saw this treaty as a death sentence. Russia and the several slavic countries that aided her exploration and colonization went on to become the Socialist Republics of Zeleniy. Many historians blame the Zeleniyan's ancestors for the ensuing war, some arguing however that it was inevitable.

A devastating war followed, starting with the Alarei attack on the Einstein Shipyards and ending with a genocidal nuclear strike on the Alarei homeworld by the first Inter Stellar Ballistic Missiles. Human kind had chosen to withhold the fact that it had developed jump cruise missiles, and had now used them as a deadly bargaining chip to end the war in its favor. The war splintered the old Council; some desired peace, while others joined the Alarei in defense against the powerful Humans. The Alarei had nothing to lose; their homeworld was a nuclear wasteland, and their colonies had been devastated by gruesome orbital bombardments. Their allies feared a similar fate. The Alarei withdrew all of their defensive vessels and refitted them with nuclear weapons, preparing for their next move.

That move took place on the 26th of December, 2142. That day became known as Black Wednesday. Alarei and allied ships, armed with nuclear warheads, jumped a few kilometers above major human cities and detonated them, killing two thirds of the human population. The human retaliation completely wiped out the Alarei and almost entirely devastated their allies, but at significant cost. The United Nations and the inter-galactic community collapsed collapsed, and the remaining nations of Sol took up arms in a long and bloody civil war over the last remaining clean soil. Ironically, this war ended in nuclear holocaust. The destructive nature of man had finally taken its toll. The galaxy was quiet...

Johannesburg, South Africa, two soldiers sit side by side for eternity, frozen to death. The nuclear war has drastically changed the planet's climate and blocks out the sun, causing for below freezing conditions in places like Africa and Egypt.

The year 2442. Three hundred years have passed since the First Interstellar War, and the remaining Human empires, surviving the destruction of their homeworld by colonizing distant habitable planets, join together at the new Armistice Station with the remaning non-human species. Their mission is to decide the future of the known galaxy, but it is no simple task. The war of long ago, fought between Humanity and Alarei, has heightened anti-alien sentiments in the human population. This has deeply concerned the non-human community, bringing the two major alien powers, the Kal'Bavakorian Alliance and the Valkari Empire, into a cold war. Issues are only made worse as a major fuel crisis reigns over the local cluster. The inability of the major species to coordinate their effort to seek a new energy source and see past their racial boundaries brings downfall. Helium runs low, and worlds begin to struggle. War begins to fill the minds and hearts of the Armistice community.

The Second Interstellar War

The destruction of the Valkari homeworld, Kaan, by a Kal'Bavakorian military fleet supported by New Terran supply craft.

2457. Within' fifteen years time, the Teuffel Mining Field runs almost completely dry. Negotiations on Armistice collapse; forcing Coalition and Alliance delegates to leave. This forces the allied forces of the Kal'Bavakorian Alliance and their New Terran allies into direct conflict with the United Systems Coalition, as both fight for worlds, resources and the remaining veins of Helium-3 in the known cluster. The true hatred between the Kal'Bavakorians and the Coalition becomes the forefront in the war, and the galactic community watches silently as USC warships inflict heavy causalities on the Alliance Navy while Kal'Bavakorian Legionnaires decimate entire armies of the Coalition with ease. Civilian casualties become commonplace as the militaries of each side begin to push one another back into their home clusters. Space battles over the Kal'Bavakorian world of Hallo'Wai and in the Ballo'Krechka System forces foreign diplomats to retreat, while conflict in the Washington and Chicago Systems forces Coalition citizens to find shelter.

The war continues to deplete both the resources of the Alliance and the Coalition. The Valkari, seeing a weakened Alliance, decides to initiate an assault into Kal'Bavakorian territory in order to gather more worlds for their bustling empire. Supported by weaponry and unofficial special forces operations from the Commonwealth, the first Valkari fleets break the first Kal'Bavakorian defensive fleet and initiates an assault upon Hallo'Wai; their warrior culture conflicting with the Kal'Bavakorians. The battles over and on Hallo'Wai become some of the most violent in the war, and create a deep rooted hatred between both species. Only through Legion tenacity and reinforcements from Un does the Alliance break the assault on their colony. Attacks by Valkari and the Coalition continue, and now the Kal'Bavakorians and their New Terran allies face an assault on two fronts.

The Kal'Bavakorian Alliance, while holding out as best as they can, begins to show desperation. Having been on the defensive, their Imperial High Command faces an ultimatum: Attack, or face defeat. In response, the Alliance launches a risky operation with the support of the New Terran military. Launching a double-edged attack on both Coalition and Valkari space, the Alliance targets the Coalition-held Talarin, and the Valkari homeworld of Kaan. The first massive fleet, supported by New Terran supply forces, initiates a two pronged assault: a smaller force attacking the Washington System to divert attention from Talarin, while a massive force warps directly over Talarin.

The assault goes horribly. Defenses on Talarin decimate the Alliance fleet, causing many ships to burn up in the atmosphere or forcing other craft to crash onto the planet. The Coalition loses many craft, but nothing compared to Alliance loses. The remaining Alliance fleet and their New Terran allies launch a series of nuclear strikes onto the planet; destroying crashed friendly ships and plunging the planet into a second nuclear winter before escaping.

A massive fleet of captured human craft, however, prepares a fake attack on a Valkari world at the same time. Launched by Kal'Bavakorians, this distraction forces a huge force from the Valkari homeworld to run to the planet's defense. Before the ploy can be discovered, however, a true Kal'Bavakorian fleet warps over Kaan. Decimating the resisting fleet, the Alliance initiates a series of planetary bombardments and launches troops to conquer the world. In the ferocity of the attack, the Kal'Bavakorian military launches a series of bio-weapons onto the planet. In an unseen turn of events, the bio-weapon reacts aggressively to the planets eco-system, nearly destroying the planet's eco-system and atmosphere. It's population lies in ruins.

The Coalition, fearing another attack by the industrious Alliance on the scale of Talarin, decides it is time to initiate their last attack against the Alliance. ISBM's, nuclear weapons capable of destroying continents via warping into a planet's atmosphere from another system, are used against the Kal'Bavakorian systems of Ballo'Krechka and Hallo'Wai. Billions are killed instantly, prompting a similar response from Kal'Bavakor. Similar weapons are used against the Chicago and Washington Systems, killing the entire human population just as quickly as their Kal'Bavakorian opponents were.

With these weapons of mass destruction finally used, the war ends overnight. The Valkari are left without a home, the Coalition has lost half it's fleet and population, and the Kal'Bavakorians plunge into the 'Great Hunger' with their main food facilities in Ballo'Krechka lost. Galactic politics collapse overnight, with Armistice left abandoned in it's wake. The Commonwealth and the New Terrans, their comrades and trade partners having gone dark to lick their wounds, begin to face rapid fuel shortages and must cope with the loss of trade. In light of this, they too collapse into obscurity. The galaxy has gone dark once again...

The year is now 2477, Earth calendar. Twenty years have passed. New races and hidden human colonies, once unable to make their way into the stars, now have access to basic space age technologies. Dormant alien fleets fall to inhabited planets to leave new technologies behind, trade blockades collapse to allow small empires to flourish, and small scale sources of Helium-3 in previously unsettled systems now supply new fleets for years. Smaller races rush into the void to take their prizes: seats on the now empty Armistice Station, fuel reserves, and empty planets in a galactic sector where habitable worlds are few and far in between.

This is were you come in. Your people, either human or alien, await expansion into the stars, to break the silence that has reigned for centuries. Will you attempt to bring the galaxy to peace through diplomacy, or conquer it in a bloody crusade? Will you create, or will you destroy? The choice is yours.

Welcome to the universe.

Welcome Amongst the Stars.

Credits to Alien and EyesofMarch for the backstory.

Last edited by EyesofMarch on Thu Mar 12, 2015 12:07 am; edited 1 time in total